The Lyons Share

Whilst I was walking along the mill leat at Woods Mill yesterday (14th October) to photograph the river restoration, I noticed a medium brown butterfly struggling along in the open. The sun was quite warm  (it was  2.00 pm) but there was very little latent heat in the air, it was really cold in the shade. I thought it was too late for Gatekeeper and was probably a stray Speckled Wood. It landed in some rank grass and I was amazed to see it was a tatty female Brown Hairstreak. I posted about a male I spotted outside my office window but that was on  the 16th August, almost two months ago. I see that on the Sussex Butterfly Conservation sightings page Wendy Wilson spotted one on the 11th October this year at Pulborough. She stated that this was far later than her previous late record of the 7th. So, could this be the last record of a living adult Brown Hairstreak of the year? Has anyone else seen one this late, I'd love to hear about it.

I saw a female about 100 m from this point two years ago but there is very little Blackthorn scrub where yesterday's individual was found. Although there are some fairly impressive English Oaks present, there are very few Ash trees.